He was the first editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and his racy style and talent for aphorisms made it an immediate popular success. He was a friend of the poet Robert Burns, who described him as “that old Veteran in Genius, Wit and Bawdry.”

Scientist, writer, master printer, natural philosopher, encyclopedist, bon vivant, William Smellie (1740-1795) was a man of many parts with very definite ideas about dreams. He was a Scot who wanted to rescue the study of dreams from the “dark theological horror” of the Calvinist imagination that had taken hold of many of his countryman.

Smellie (wonderful name!) insisted that dreams are neither escapist fantasies nor wiles of the devil, but a mirror in which we see the true shape of our desires. We may deceive ourselves, but dreams do not lie. In his article on dreams in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, he declared that “the imaginary transactions of the dreamer always bear some relation to his particular character in the world, his habits of action, and the circumstances of his life.” Therefore, “a person whose habits of life are virtuous does not in his dreams plunge into a series of crimes; nor are the vicious reformed when they pass into this imaginary world.”

Smellie took this argument further in The Philosophy of Natural History:

The vice which is most frequently and luxuriously indulged in our dreams, may safely be esteemed our predominant passion. Though motives of interest, decency, and the opinions of our friends, may have restrained us from actual gratification, and created a delusive belief that we are no longer subject to its solicitations; yet, if the imaginary gratification constitutes an agreeable dream…we may freely conclude..that those motives which deter from actual indulgence are not the genuine motives which virtue inspires…We should reflect that, during sleep, the mind is more ingenuous, less inclined to palliate its real motives, less influenced by public opinion, and in general, more open and candid, than when the sense are awake.

Let’s notice that this philosophy of dreams implies that we are responsible for our actions in dreams, just as in waking life. We should compare our behavior in dreams to our behavior in regular life and use the dream mirror to correct our performance.

Image: Portrait of William Smellie by George Watson in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Robert Moss

Robert Moss describes himself as a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture. He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three ""Only"" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse.

Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the ""Way of the Dreamer"" radio show at www.healthylife.net.

He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.